"The Blade"

Indiana taxpayers have just the right man in the middle of the state's heated budget standoff. He is Gov. Mitch Daniels, nicknamed "The Blade" for his budget cutting prowess when he was the White House budget director.

His fiscal discipline will be needed in the coming weeks as Indiana lawmakers go into special session and attempt to agree on a budget.

To do it right and protect the state's fiscal credibility, these lawmakers must make sacrifices, not only in programs but perhaps even to their own political popularity.

No one — not Daniels, not a single legislator — wants to flat-line existing programs, much less make actual spending cuts in those programs, but these unusual economic times seem to make that unpopular task unavoidable. Otherwise, with irresponsible spending, the state could be facing years of deep debt and the threat of eventual tax increases.

That is why we say it is reassuring that Indiana taxpayers have Daniels and his veto watching over the budget proceedings.

Remember this: Daniels was the guy who came into the governor's office of a depressed state, carrying an $800 million deficit, and turned it around. That was no easy feat in change-resistent Indiana.

But Daniels may be just what Indiana needed then, and needs now. He is a fiscal conservative — perhaps a fiscal cautionary would be a better description. He is practical; he takes what the state has in hand, and sees if he can make it work better. (Major Moves comes to mind) And there is some libertarian qualities in there. He doesn't seem to get overly involved in social issues, but rather, sticks to trying to make government work at the least cost and the least intrusion to taxpayers.

We would say those are typical Hoosier qualities that may help explain how Daniels ran strong for re-election in the year of Obama.

We aren't the only ones who have noticed. Indeed, Daniels' national profile is on the rise.

Just in recent days, he was the subject of a cover story in a national political magazine, delivered the Republican national radio message, and addressed the conservative Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C. And at 7 p.m. this evening, he is scheduled to appear on C-SPAN.

His message in some of this to national Republicans was that conservatism still works.

In the National Review issue dated June 8, Mark Hemingway quoted Daniels, "I guarantee that the principles of fiscal caution and conservatism have not gone out of style." The article was titled, "The Blade."

For those curious about all of this attention and the fact that he cannot seek re-election, Daniels repeated in the National Review article that he is not interested in running for higher office. That means either for the presidency or for he senate seat held by his former boss, Sen. Richard Lugar, when ever he decides to step down. He told the writer he still has plenty to do as governor, and indeed, he does.

Back in Indiana, Daniels and the legislators have their work cut out for them. The special session begins Thursday. Daniels has told lawmakers what he would like to see in the budget, and he has agree to some compromise, such as allowing up to $300 million to be used from the state's $1.3 billion surplus. He wants to hold on to $1 billion, lest the state run into more money woes next year.

A bipartisan committee of lawmakers had been working in advance of the special session on budget preliminaries, but on Thursday, House Democrats walked out of a public hearing, complaining that Daniels had injected politics into the budget process.

Now that would be unusual, wouldn't it? Injecting politics into legislative proceedings?

According to The Associated Press, one of the Democrats' concerns was that Daniels was taking credit for proposing to give public schools an average two percent increase in each of the next two years, although the majority of it would come from federal stimulus money.

Daniels' side replied that it had made no secret about the source of the money.

OK, points taken.

Now, get back to work on crafting a budget that serves the best interests of the Hoosiers, much as Daniels has proposed.